Abbot Barnabas Senecal, a Benedictine monk, reflects on the Psalms, prayer, photography, and the Benedictine desire "to seek God daily."

At a press conference this week in Washington, DC, religious leaders gathered to denounce anti-Muslim bigotry and "to promote a culture of mutual respect and the assurance of religious freedom for all."

"This isn't about bigotry. This isn't about religious persecution. This really is about sensitivity and a profound sense of loss," says Fordham University Law School professor Thane Rosenbaum.

The blast of the shofar during the High Holy Days, says Rabbi Irwin Tanenbaum, "sends a shiver. We can be better than we are, and how do we approach God but with that strange cry in our ear, and perhaps on our lip, and we come before God and we say who are we? What are we? Remember what we could be, and help us along."

Was it worth it? Was it just? Did the good exceed the harm? William Galston and Michael Cromartie discuss the costs and consequences of the Iraq war as the US ends its combat mssion.

Washington, DC religious leaders spoke against rising anti-Muslim rhetoric at an August 30 press conference, and some of them also shared their thoughts about the recent rally on the National Mall organized by conservative commentator Glenn Beck.

The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville has proclaimed September 11 "International Burn a Quran Day." Several American faith groups, including the National Association of Evangelicals, have urged the church to cancel its event. Christian minorities in predominantly Muslim countries are also speaking out, asserting that the plan could further endanger their already-vulnerable communities.

"There's something happening inside of the hearts and minds of people that has brought us all together," says Rev. John Dee Jeffries of the First Baptist Church in Chalmette, Louisiana.

When Joseph Reyes, a Catholic, and Rebecca Shapiro, a Jew, got married in 2004 they did not think their different religious beliefs would be a problem. But by this past April they were divorced, with religion playing a major role.

As major combat operations come to an end and the US completes a troop drawdown in Iraq, revisit interviews with ethicists, philosophers, scholars, and religious leaders about just war and the moral issues raised by Iraq.

Listen to more of our 2007 interview with jazz great Terence Blanchard about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, and watch him and his quintet in performance at Blues Alley in Washington, DC playing a piece from their Grammy award-winning CD, "A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina)."

Jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard spoke August 17th with Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly about his recent CD, A TALE OF GOD'S WILL: A REQUIEM FOR KATRINA, when he was playing in Washington at Blues Alley.

The Media Project sponsored a conference in Jakarta, Indonesia for journalists from around the world to discuss regional perspectives on banning defamation of religion and how such measures could affect freedom of the press. Watch a video report produced by Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton and presented at the conference.

Watch scenes from a June 15 press conference at Washington Hospital Center when kidney donors and recipients, some relatives and some strangers, met after the largest kidney donor exchange ever.

Robert Veatch discusses the ethical issues surrounding organ transplants.

Biological and technological evolution "is a spiritual process," says this leading futurist. "Entities become more godlike, never reaching that ideal but moving in that direction exponentially."

Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that in the future humans will use technology to become smarter and healthier.

More than 100,000 Americans are currently on the waiting list for an organ transplant, the vast majority of them waiting for a kidney. Over the last decade, an estimated 60,000 people died while still waiting for a transplant. Given those numbers, many experts say there is a moral obligation to encourage more people to become organ donors.

Purposefulness and self-sacrifice in human life "can never be reduced to a machine," according to this bioethicist.

Watch excerpts from August 17 remarks made by religious leaders at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and American ideals and values and the controversy over building an Islamic community center near Ground Zero.